


A Serious Business

by spikala



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Clones, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-19 19:53:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9458051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spikala/pseuds/spikala
Summary: One of Torrent’s debates goes a bit far so Sergeant Coric puts the issue to rest, once and for all.





	

Kissing was _very_ serious business in Torrent Company.

For weeks the men had argued and contended the issue. The company’s famed unity had dissolved, the men falling into two highly segregated camps as they parried and countered the other side’s claims. New evidence was displayed daily; articles and images culled from every information source the men could find and used to support key points in the high-stakes argument. Yet things invariably ended in a stalemate and heated tempers. ~~~~

“It’s got to be a good thing; why else would it pop up so often on the HoloNet?”

“Frankly, it looks very unhygienic and insanitary,” Kix argued. “I mean, it goes against everything we were ever taught about fluid contamination. Do you _know_ how many diseases can be transferred through bodily fluids? Just… _yerck_!”

Hardcase rolled his eyes. “We’ve been over this before. There’s no evidence of protective devices or films for sale, so it must be acceptable practice.”

It was easy to spot Hardcase’s detractors—they were the ones wearing the looks of disgust and repugnance.

“I’m telling you,”—Hardcase waved his arms expansively, his gestures getting larger and more emphatic as he went on—“it’s a dominance thing, a way to mark possession. It explains why you see it between pair-mates so often.”

“Not true,” Dogma countered, waggling his finger to naysay Hardcase’s reasoning. “There’s no clear rules. We’ve seen males and females, just males and just females, young, old, related and not: it just doesn’t make sense. We need a reg manual, or guidelines… or _something_!”

Someone snorted. “Trust Dogma to want a reg manual.”

Dogma rounded on the anonymous speaker. “Who said that?”

Within moments, the debate turned into a hotbed of insults, shouting, and cries of ‘say that to my face!’, as every man tried to add their two credits. Clusters of angry squabbles sprang up with men maligning each other’s gestation times, DNA source, and general intelligence. The conversation got louder and louder as each man tried to yell the other down.

In the hubbub, the entrance of Sergeant Coric—Captain Rex’s second in command—went completely unnoticed. Coric halted in the doorway as he tried to take in the scene. A bunkroom that should’ve been a quiet, well-regimented place for a handful of troopers to relax between shifts was a heaving sea of men, all wearing sleep shorts and not much else, yelling and gesturing at each other. What all the noise was about, Coric had no idea and the few shouts that he could make out above the din weren’t doing much to clarify things.

“Jedi don’t do it!”

“Jedi aren’t normal!”

“Neither are we!”

“You take that back!”

Hardcase’s bellow boomed above the other voices. “Kriffing right! We’re better than normal!”

There was a blur of movement and a dull thud as someone went sprawling into a bunk and sending it crashing into the one beside it. The bunk decided it had had enough and slowly tipped, crashing into the next one, which set off the next, like a chain of durasteel dominoes. Yelps and angry shouts joined the pandemonium.

Enough was enough. Coric put two fingers in his mouth and let rip. His whistle cut through all the yelling and a sea of guilty faces and wide eyes suddenly turned his way. There was a mad rush as the men scrambled to attention, but there were too many of them in the room, prompting much shuffling and elbowing as all the troopers tried to get into an acceptable position for inspection.

“What in the blue blazes is going on here?” Coric demanded.

Now that they were all standing still, Coric noticed that not all the men in the room were troopers. “Sergeant Zeer.” Coric’s voice was dry and Zeer flushed, ears going a dull red, as he met Coric’s gaze.

“Sir?”

“What happened here, sergeant?”

“Just a little debate that got out of hand, sir.”

Coric raised an eyebrow. “Out of hand? Two black eyes—yes I _can_ see you Ross—and a roomful of toppled bunks is a bit more than out of hand, don’t you think, sergeant? Take a seat, lads.” The men relaxed when they realised he wasn’t going to yell at them like Captain Rex might’ve done. The Captain had to enforce discipline and set an example, but as Second, Sergeant Coric had a bit more leeway. The bunks were righted and the men wedged themselves in. When everyone was sitting, Coric continued. “Now, can someone tell me what’s this all about?”

It was Jesse who answered him. “Kissing, sir.”

Coric glanced at Zeer. “Is this true, sergeant? All this, just about kissing?”

“Yes, sir.”

Coric’s lips twisted into a moue of disapproval. “This stops now. I don’t want to see this again and I _know_ that Captain Rex wouldn’t want to hear of this, would he, boys?” He eyed them severely and there was a muttered chorus of agreement and shuffling of feet.

“Sir,” Hardcase shuffled forward on his seat. “I think that kissing is a gesture of caring—a good thing—done between friends. Whereas certain others,”—Coric noticed that Hardcase glanced at Kix as he spoke—“seem to think it’s an unhygienic gesture that is just a throwback of human social culture; which is why more enlightened citizens either kiss on the cheek or not at all.”

There were murmurs of disagreement and the volume started to climb until Coric raised a hand, cutting off the chatter. “So let me get this straight, you can’t decide what kissing means or where you should kiss someone—is that right?”

Coric smothered his exasperation as he watched Kix and Jesse trade wary looks, apparently unwilling to concede unless the other did so as well. Tup and Dogma were also looking fairly sulky. “Well?” he prompted.

“Yes, sir,” Hardcase said.

“And how were you going to measure the success rate of a kiss, hmmm?” Coric asked, looking around the room. He saw Tup look away. “Hmm, Tup?” he added.

Tup swallowed, visibly discomforted. “Well, sergeant, um, based on our research, apparently a, um, kiss should induce a physiological response in participants.”

_Physiological response?_ It sounded completely batty to Coric, but the men were taking this deadly seriously at a time when they couldn’t afford the extra distraction. Coric made a decision on the fly. “Right, I’m not going to be patching you up on Umbara because you busy were sighing over kisses instead of paying attention to the enemy. Jesse, Hardcase—up you get.”

The two tattooed clones came forward to stand in front of him. Coric nodded. “Right, now kiss each other on the cheek.”

Hardcase’s eyes were wide. “Sir?”

“I’m settling this once and for all with some good old-fashioned scientific experimentation. You kiss each other and if you get a physiological response, that’s the end of the debate.” Neither man moved so Coric crossed his arms. “I’m waiting.”

The air in the room was electric as Jesse slowly leaned forward and gave Hardcase a quick peck on the cheek.

“Well?” someone demanded.

Hardcase shrugged. “Scratchy.”

Jesse made a non-committal grunt.

“Aha!” Dogma sounded triumphant. “Throwback to a bygone era!”

That remark set off a wave of heated comments. Coric cleared his throat pointedly and everyone subsided again. Coric pointed. “You’ve just volunteered for round two, Dogma.”

Dogma plodded up to stand in front of Coric as Jesse and Hardcase found a seat on one of the bunks.

“Now this is the last experiment, a kiss on the lips. I don’t want to hear any more on the matter after this, are we clear?” Coric looked around, getting a smattering of nods. He stared down the dissenters until they gave in with muttered “yes, sergeant”s. “Good. Tup—get up here.”

Tup’s ears went bright red as he got up and took his place in front of Dogma.

“Uh, sergeant?”

Coric looked around and saw Hardcase waving his hand around in the air like a cadet. “Yes, trooper?”

“If this is a proper experiment, shouldn’t they be closer?”

Others chimed in. “They’re supposed to hold hands!”

“And look into each other’s eyes!”

Apparently the men were taking this experiment business very seriously. Coric sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Dogma and Tup were both looking at him with pleading eyes. “Go on, you heard them.”

Reluctantly, Tup and Dogma shuffled closer.

“Put your arms around him!”

Dogma obeyed the anonymous heckler, closing the gap so he was almost chest-to-chest with the younger man, and gingerly rested his palms on Tup’s shoulders. Then, slowly, with more than twenty pairs of eyes riveted on them, Dogma leaned in and pressed his lips to Tup’s. 

* * *

 

Tup couldn’t breathe. Dogma’s lips pressed against his and he instinctively leaned closer. Something opened deep inside him, a roaring pit where none had existed a moment ago. Then just as suddenly as it had happened, Dogma pulled away.

“Well?” It was Sergeant Coric.

Tup tried to pull himself together, his heart hammering in his ears.

Beside him, Dogma stretched up, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “Can’t say I noticed a difference.”

All eyes were on Tup. He forced himself to laugh away his awkwardness. What was wrong with him? “Bit slobbery,” he said, as blithely as he could manage.

There were groans of disappointment from the rest of the pro-kissing camp. Jesse peered up at Tup hopefully. “No rushing of blood and all that jatz?”

Tup shook his head, ordering his blood to stop rushing. “Nothing,” he lied.

Sergeant Coric took over again. “Well that’s that. This matter is closed and you should, all of you, be in your racks. Now shift it!”

There was a rustling noise as the others made their way out of the room. Tup was left alone in the darkness with Dogma, Jesse, and Hardcase. He lay back on his bunk, staring up at the ceiling.

In the bunk beneath him, Dogma chuckled. “That was weird, wasn’t it Tup? Let’s _not_ do that again.”

“Yeah,” Tup echoed, feeling empty. “Let’s not.”

 


End file.
